Congress Has Only Said LOL Once

On March 28, 2007, Texas’ Republican rep K. Conaway said LOL. It’s the one and only time. Thanks to the Sunlight Foundation’s new Capitol Words tool, you can search everything Congress has said since ’96. Let’s have fun.

Capitol Words is incredibly deep, offering wonderfully organised snapshot of a word (or phrase), broken down by time, frequency, political party, and even the exact moment of speech in which it was used. Any kind of trend frequency like this is neat, but when it’s our country’s lawmakers, it’s of particular note. So what’s been on their tech agenda over the years?

Internet porn? A handful of times, but only by Republicans.

The internet itself? Uttered constantly since ’96, naturally, and split evenly between parties, though Sen. Patrick J. Leahy dominates the discussion, as a perennially tech-oriented senator.

Republicans love to talk about the iPhone.

And lasers.

Democrats love to talk about net neutrality.

And of course, Apple versus Mac.

This tool has a lot of serious, powerful uses for political analysis. But for now, go ahead and enter penis. You know you’re going to anyway. [Sunlight Foundation]